


Hercules Fought With Fire

by Philosophizes



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Also a tiny bit for Thor 2 and Iron Man 3 if you haven't seen those yet, Captain America: The Winter Soldier Spoilers, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-08
Updated: 2014-04-07
Packaged: 2018-01-18 14:20:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1431646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Philosophizes/pseuds/Philosophizes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Avengers react to the reveal about SHIELD, and decide they're going to take matters into their own hands.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Shot Heard Round the World

**Author's Note:**

> Title a reference to the myth of the Hydra, which Hercules defeated by burning where he cut each head off so no new heads could grow.

**Manhattan**

It was amazing the amount of work you could get done when your days weren’t filled with upgrades and repairs and new blueprints and models for the single most advanced piece of technology, weaponized or otherwise, mankind had ever seen.

Tony was finally catching up to Stark Industries’ Research and Development dilemmas, discards, and back-burner projects. The board had stopped complaining all the time, Pepper was gleefully plotting market takeovers in the upcoming financial quarter, and Happy was actually living up to his name, now that he’d gotten out of the hospital and realized he didn’t have to worry about his boss pulling out Iron Man armor at the first sign of trouble.

And maybe his chest felt too light and maybe he hadn’t put away all the armor blueprints from the Mark 42 just yet and maybe he found himself staring blankly at the alcoves in the workshop where the armors he’d planned on bringing to New York before he’d destroyed them all taking down AIM stood empty.

 _“Sir,”_ JARVIS said insistently, and Tony realized that _damn it he was doing it **again**_ and snapped: _“What_ , JARVIS, there’s a board meeting right now, no one with any authority to bother me is free, if it’s SHIELD tell them I don’t _care_ that Fury’s dead, my relationship with them stands-”

Instead of answering, JARVIS just pulled up screen after screen of holographs and scrolling data and Tony was about to ask what this was and why he cared and then he saw ‘SHIELD’ and ‘agents’ and ‘op’ and ‘redacted’ and this was _SHIELD’s database and this was the Internet._

“This-” he started to say, but then he saw ‘HYDRA’ and there was the skull-and-tentacles symbol and ‘Zola’ and ‘nuclear’ and ‘Phase Two’ and everything for Project Insight was flying past his face and Howard had been a founder of SHIELD, _figures_ it had been so corrupt-

Howard. SHIELD. Contacts, contracts, HYDRA, weapons building building chaos Stark Industries manipulation leadership ‘for their own good’ _Stane._

_Obadiah Stane._

There was never a moment he’d wished more for his armor but he’d scrapped _everything_ he’d promised Pepper he wouldn’t build like he had been and the reactor was out, the reactor was Iron Man’s heart and Tony didn’t have that anymore he was supposed to have moved past needing the armor, hadn’t he, but now Pepper was in a board meeting and he’d never been able to kick all of Stane’s people out of the company because Stane had been running things for so long and capital and workforce were _vital_ and if SHIELD was HYDRA and Howard had founded SHIELD and SHIELD had gotten Howard and Obadiah in the same room and Obadiah had been selling Stark Industries weapons and promoting terror and chaos and fear _then Stane had been HYDRA and Pepper was in with HYDRA’s people._

“JARVIS, shut it down!” he yelled as he ran out of his workshop to the stairs _he could’ve been there by now if he’d had the armor._ “Everything! Shut everything down! The Tower, California, Berlin, Moscow, Cairo, Osaka, Kolkata _everything!_ Company-wide lockdown, nobody leaves _any_ building nobody goes _online_ nobody makes any _calls_ none of the factory machines run _USE THE KILL SWITCH_ -”

He kept yelling as he burst out the stairs onto the executive floor and Happy was there already, thank God JARVIS must have used some initiative for that what had he been _thinking_ trying to go in without backup, and they practically forced the door to the board room down to find Pepper standing at the head of the table, gun in hand with half the board dead in blood pools at her feet and the calm expression he knew heartbreaking well immediately preceded the half-screaming shock she always had after this sort of thing.

Tony flung himself at her and held her close and he was _not_ going to collapse in tears and nerves in front of what remained of his board, he was _not._

“Tony?” Pepper asked, voice starting to shake.

“SHIELD,” Tony managed, mouth dry. “SHIELD is HYDRA. Stane was HYDRA.”

Pepper pulled back a step and gripped his shoulders, the gun placed carefully down on the carpet. She took a long hard look at the corpses in the boardroom and a few deep breaths, then looked Tony in the eyes.

“Go start the Mark 43.”

 

**Airspace**

“Now, there’s no need to be rash,” Specialist May said, a gun each on Agent Ward and Fitz as Captain America’s words, broadcast through the Triskellion, SHIELD’s training schools, the Hub, the Sandbox, and all field operations, faded away.

The Bus was engaged in a classic Mexican standoff- May with her gun on Ward, Ward with his gun on Skye, Skye with her gun on Fitz and Simmons, Fitz and Simmons with experimental weaponry on May and Coulson, Coulson with his gun on May.

Slowly, Coulson removed one hand from his pistol and sank to the floor, pushing his weapon a few feet across the carpet before putting both hands behind his hand.

Everyone else stared.

“Coulson-” May started.

“You’ve all seen the files by now,” Coulson said. His voice could be called calm but for the quavering edge to his words. “What SHI- _HYDRA’s_ doctors did. _I_ wouldn’t trust me not be a sleeper agent. You shouldn’t either.”

“But-” Simmons started to say as May and Ward held a staring contest, gun barrels inching down millimeter by millimeter. Skye hastily stuck hers on the seat next to her and sat on her hands, looking ready to dive under the table.

 _“Oh my God,”_ she said suddenly. “It’s all over the Internet. Somebody dumped SHIELD’s servers. Personnel files, operation protocols, passwords, operations, R &D, cover-ups and cover stories- The Rising Tide is going _crazy._ ”

“Natasha,” Coulson said under his breath. “Good job.”

“Cou-” May started again.

 _“Melinda,”_ he said sharply, and she holstered her gun, turned her back to Ward, and marched Coulson to the holding cell.

“I don’t agree with you,” she said as she stripped him down to his undershirt and briefs, thoroughly checking the clothing seams, his mouth, and other awkward orifices for hidden tools or triggers or suicide pills.

“Not your call.”

May tossed his clothes and weapons into the hallway outside the cell, then quickly shoved the cot, chair, and table out after them. If she _had_ to do this, she was going to do it right.

“Stay in the air until you know what the situation on the ground is,” Coulson told her as she started to leave. “Don’t answer to anyone but Romanova or Rogers. They’re the only people you can trust in this mess. Tell Romanova everything about this team and my condition, and when she demands proof, tell her that Barton likes purple because it makes him feel important and that Diaghliev’s best work was with _Scheherazade_ .”

He stopped, and May had almost closed the door when he spoke again.

“And tell her I’m proud of her.”

 

**The Vicinity of Ayteke Bi, Kazakhstan**

That the fear at what this betrayal implied was stronger than the black red rage was the only thing that was letting him get away from the city.

He hadn’t trusted and he hadn’t trusted with good reason, as had been proved before and during and now after but he’d had _something;_ he’d had something he thought he could be proud of.

He’d thought he’d helped people. He’d thought he’d found the good guys, kind of, sort of, for a given value of good, as good as he was ever going to get, with the thing he was.

He couldn’t even really blame them for being prepared. Wasn’t that what he’d done his whole life?

But this, _this_ was a stain, a taint, a disease and a blight on his memories.

What had the Avengers really been?

SHIELD had told them they were a group for extraordinary threats, but why would you put together a team with two assassins, a god with a superiority complex, a time-displaced social disaster waiting to happen, a man whose entire psychological profile actual ended with a scathing advisory _against_ including him, and a monster?

Because you wanted to see them fail.

Because you wanted them to get in each other’s way, to trip up over each other’s personalities and values and thought processes.

Because you wanted them to fight and get into petty arguments and sabotage each other instead of dealing with the larger threat.

Because you wanted to show the world that _they couldn’t protect themselves;_ that they were small and stupid and horrible and _monsters-_

There was no one around and he couldn’t see the city anymore so Bruce Banner _screamed_ to the sky for what he’d thought he’d had, and the wordless noise ended in Hulk’s roar.

 

**Tbilisi, Georgia**

Clint’s first thought was _‘What the fuck’_ , followed closely by _‘Holy SHIT Natasha’_ , which came immediately before _‘I am so fucking screwed’_.

He took his bow, his bootleg computer, his phone, his guns, and the bag with his money and illegal-border-crossing kit, despite the fact that pretty much everything in it he couldn’t use now, because all his SHIELD (HYDRA) cover identities were useless now, plus the ones he’d made for himself, which he didn’t know SHIELD (HYDRA) had known about them. He’d only told a few to Coulson, and all of them to Nata-

 _“Damn you, Nat!”_ spat as he turned his acquired motorcycle on, the noise the motor made covering his English.

She’d done that on _purpose,_ she’d blown every cover _she’d_ ever had to get his attention, and then put all of _his_ on the same public record so he’d have nowhere to go but back to _her._

He stewed most of the way to Armenia, stopping every so often where he found wifi to check on the information dump again and catch up on the news from DC about SHIELD. In Marneuli, he learned that the new Helicarriers and the most of the Triskellion were in ruins in the Potomac, the original Helicarrier had docked in New Orleans with scorch marks like lightning all down its sides and the port had been evacuated because no one knew who’d _won_ that battle, the SHIELD Academies in the Midwest were battlegrounds the National Guard had been called out to, the Hub and the Sandbox were blown to high heaven.

SHIELD was well and truly dead.

Only- damn, nearly three years now. Whatever-the-hell it was in London that had Thor back after two years last summer, then the disaster with Stark over Christmas, and now this.

On his next stop to check the news, just before the border crossing, Stark Industries’s universal lockdown was getting headlines nearly as big as the ones on SHIELD and HYDRA. A quick look at the finished information dump, and _shit that was Sitwell, Sitwell was **evil** ,_ and Clint’s carefully unbroken tense thoughtlessness broke.

The _fuck_ had he done to his life? He’d traded in the life of a contract killer for the job of a fascist assassin, apparently.

He’d wondered why it didn’t seem like SHIELD ( _HYDRA_ ; goddammit, _how-_ ) was coming after him, he was a traitor and a deserter- but when he saw the plans and purpose for Project Insight, his blood ran cold with the knowledge.

An hour ago, he could have died, and he’d never have known.

Clint kicked the stand on the motorcycle up, pocketed his phone, and kept driving.

He slowed as the border approached, considering. By the time he reached the checkpoint, he’d realized he had nothing to lose, and that really, his path had been set from the moment he’d seen Natasha tell the whole world her secrets. Staying angry about the manipulation wasn’t something he could really do- it was Natasha, that was part of how she worked.

And she’d need him now. She’d left herself exposed. She’d be a mass of controlled paranoia and distrust, and she needed _someone_ she knew wouldn’t turn on her.

He showed the border guards the passport that had his picture with the name _Clinton Francis Barton_ , and proclaimed him a US citizen.

Clint drove across the Georgia-Armenia border with a low rumble of the motor and a perfunctory look-and-wave of the checkpoint officials, because _Clinton Francis Barton_ was a nobody. He got far enough down the road that the border was out of sight, then pulled over and took out his phone.

“What the _hell,_ Tasha,” he said when the other end of the line picked up.


	2. The Camp Lehigh Accord

**Camp Lehigh, New Jersey  
Three weeks after Project Insight**

Steve forced the doors to the old mess hall open. The horrible screeching sound of rusted hinges filled the stale, dusty air. Sam followed him and stood in the doorway, arms folded, and Steve wrestled the windows open to air the place out and let in some real light.

“So how was it, back in the day?” he asked.

“Hard,” Steve answered. “For a puny guy, anyway.”

Natasha arrived next, silently and without comment, trailed by Clint. Steve nodded to him and Clint made an awkward head jerk back, and didn’t remove his sunglasses.

The roar of an expensive motor a few minutes later the precursor to Tony’s arrival, towing Pepper, Skye, Fitz, and Simmons.

“Where’s Specialist May?” Simmons asked.

“With Coulson,” Natasha told her. “She hasn’t left his apartment since she couldn’t convince Agent Ward not to go to the CIA.”

“So,” Tony said, thumping the briefcase he was carrying down on the nearest mess table. Everyone drifted onto the benches lining it. “You wanted us here _why?_ ”

Natasha hadn’t sat.

“SHIELD is dead,” she said. “But there’s still a space there that needs to be filled. Right now, with SHIELD’s intel public, the immediate threats are being handled. But eventually everyone will catch up, and they’ll compensate for the security breach, and there won’t be anyone to get the rest of the world up to date on what the criminals are doing.”

“You want to replace SHIELD?” Skye asked, starting to look a little indignant.

“The regular governments can handle that,” Steve said stubbornly.

“There’s still HYDRA,” Natasha told them. “And unfortunately, exposing their continued existence also took out the best defense we had against them.”

“Well, good riddance-” Tony began, but a breath of wind and the door bursting open interrupted him.

“My friends!” Thor boomed, towing a woman behind him. “Well met!”

“How the hell did he find us,” Clint muttered.

“I told him,” Natasha said. “Hello, Thor. Thank you for helping with Helicarrier.”

He clapped her on the back, and she didn’t stagger.

“It was my pleasure, Lady Natasha. ‘Twas vile, the way this dragon infiltrated the place of such as Fury and Coulson.”

“HYDRA,” Steve said. “Not a dragon. It’s an acronym.”

“Hey, big guy,” Tony said, leaning back in his seat. “Did you kidnap an astrophysicist on the way here for kicks, or-”

Thor beamed.

“I have brought my Lady Doctor Jane to be a part of this war council, as is fitting for one such as she!”

“We’re getting married,” Jane translated.

 _“Really?”_ Tony asked, sounding much too interested. Pepper elbowed him.

“Congratulations,” Steve said perfunctorily.

“How does that _work?_ ” Fitz asked. “I mean, Asgardian, human- do you have to find some Norse pagans, or are you trying to convince a church-”

 _“Oh my God, Fitz!”_ Skye hissed, kicking him under the table.

“ _What?_ It’s a perfectly reasonable question, he doesn’t have citizenship anywhere- can he become a naturalized US citizen-”

“Have a seat,” Pepper told Thor, neatly cutting off all other conversation. “It’s good to meet you, Dr. Foster. I’ve heard a lot about you from Tony.”

Jane smiled nervously at her and sat between her and Thor.

“Nothing can be SHIELD,” Simmons said firmly.

“Nothing _should_ be SHIELD,” Steve continued, trying to make the point he’d started to mention earlier. “There’s no accountability there. It was too easy to hide things-”

Tony snorted.

“-and abuse the power. It was a spy organization, and that just made it worse. They had too many things to do, too much power. They did espionage, they did law enforcement, and they added planetary security and, and _persecution_ when no one else could or would or was allowed.”

“Look, I get it,” Tony picked up. “Knowledge is power and all that. But if you’re not going to use it responsibly, you shouldn’t have it. I should have taken down SHIELD _myself_ when I found out how fishy they were with the Tessaract.”

Natasha just stood there, arms folded.

“I don’t even know why you still want me,” Skye said. “I’m not sure I want to be here.”

“I’m _retired,_ ” Sam added.

“All I want is Bucky back,” Steve said, standing. “I’ve never been happy with SHIELD, but I respected it because I knew the people who founded it had their hearts and minds in the right place. But what it became? I’m not going to be complicit in _building_ something like that. I’m out.”

“What if it wasn’t SHIELD?” Pepper asked. “What if there was no espionage? What if it’s only job was like the Avengers- permanently, full time? What if it was _your_ job, Tony?”

The man in question started looking suspiciously between her and Natasha.

Clint tilted his head.

“Are you suggesting… a superpowered anti-terrorist association?”

“Like a guard force!” Thor exclaimed, catching on. “A band of warriors, who protect the kingdom and sally beyond the borders when necessary to pre-empt a threat!”

“Who’d back this?” Skye asked suspiciously.

“The UN?” Simmons ventured.

“No one _has_ to fund it,” Jane said firmly. “It’s the right thing to do. There’s some things-”

Her expression went a bit distant, and her voice dropped slightly, getting everyone’s attention. Thor folded one of his hands around hers on top the table.

“There are some things you _have_ to have power to counter; or at least people who know how to _get_ to the power. No one but SHIELD ever trained for that, and SHIELD wasn’t even putting priority on it.”

“The only people we can trust who are committed to this are in this room,” Natasha told Steve. “Besides May and Coulson in Trenton, and Coulson’s being stubborn about the trust issue. We have to do some espionage, but if run-of-the-mill intelligence is the dealbreaker? We won’t do it.”

Everyone stared at Natasha.

“You _sure_ about that, Tasha?” Clint asked carefully.

She raised her chin.

“We’ll do just what we have to to keep ahead of the people with power who’d misuse it. Otherwise? Anti-terrorism. And Dr. Foster’s right. It doesn’t matter if no one will fund it, or even if we decide not to make it official or try to get backing. _Someone_ has to go after HYDRA. They’ve used _all_ of us, _hurt_ all of us- and if nothing else, _that_ deserves avenging.”

Steve sat back down.

“I have to find Bucky,” he said.

“I know,” Natasha told him.

Her eyes flicked towards Clint, just for a second.

“But you don’t know where to start looking,” she continued. “And if he’s alive, then he’s gone straight back to HYDRA-”

Steve scowled.

“Over the Potomac-”

“-it could have been a couple things, Steve. People _can_ break brainwashing, but you can’t get optimistic about these things. The Winter Soldier will go back to HYDRA, so when you find him, you’ll run into HYDRA, and it’ll be just you and Wilson. You can’t take the entire organization on with no resources and no backup.”

Steve looked around the table.

“So you’d all come with me.”

“No,” Natasha told him. “You stay here. You have two hackers-”

She gestured at Skye and Tony.

“-an entire team of scientists to make weaponry and gadgets, my contact and expertise, Clint’s contacts, a strong financial base in Stark’s money, and enough brute force and skill to make the Howling Commandos proud.”

“And envious,” Tony said. “Flying suit of armor and all.”

“When we find HYDRA bases, you have Iron Man, Thor, Black Widow, Hawkeye, your friend Wilson, Specialist Melinda May, and Phil Coulson to break it with you,” Natasha told Steve. “ _We will bring HYDRA to their knees.”_

Steve looked around the table.

“I won’t have just Black Widow’s word for it,” he said. “Are you all in?”

“‘Till death,” Thor swore.

“For HYDRA?” Clint asked. “Fuck yeah.”

“To keep you all honest,” Skye told them.

“I built the suit to protect people. I’d never live it down if I stopped now.”

“Already said I would, didn’t I?” Sam said.

“We’ll make it work,” Pepper promised.

“I want a closer look at that wing suit,” Tony told Sam. “You still have the pieces around somewhere?”


	3. The Sheath for the Sword

**Strategic Human and Extraterrestrial Asset Training and Handling (SHEATH)  
Base Lehigh, New Jersey**

After HYDRA and Ultron, after Tony and Pepper’s wedding and Loki on the throne of Asgard, after Thanos and Chthon, they were well-established.

The commandant’s quarters at Camp Lehigh was now the Director’s office. A bronze plaque outside the door read simply:

_SHEATH Director  
Natasha Romanova_

The front door was left wide open, so the Director’s secretary could see everyone coming and going across base. From the building porch, you could see the framed charter hanging on the wall behind the secretary’s desk, high up enough that his head wasn’t blocking the view.

“Afternoon, James, Wanda, Pietro,” Coulson said, nodding to the man behind the desk and the siblings taking up the space around it.

James looked away from his conversation for a moment and touched his prosthetic arm to his head in a semi-salute.

“Afternoon, Phil,” he said, and took a second look at the old man accompanying him. “Interesting to see you here, sir.”

The old man grunted and just stared up at SHEATH’s charter, sunglasses hiding any expression.

Wanda gave him a piercing look.

“Phil,” she said. “Do you want me to go get the Director or Hawkeye-”

“We’re fine,” he said.

They stood in relative silence for a while, James and the siblings picking their conversation back up quietly, James tapping away at the holographic screen on the desktop.

“Buck!” Steve hollered from his Assistant Director’s office down the hallway. “Do you have-”

“Sent it already!” James yelled back. “Tell Stark to stay off my back about it!”

The old man in the sunglasses seemed to finish reading the charter a few moments later, and sat down in the one of the lobby chairs. Coulson took the seat next to him and took out a tablet to work on. A short time later, the Assembly Alarm went off.

 _‘Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver,’_ Sam Wilson’s voice boomed through the loudspeakers over the base. _‘You are needed at the quinjet!’_

Wanda and Pietro dashed off, leaving Coulson, James, and the man alone. Steve pelted past a moment later with his shield, sparing an incredulous look for the company.

For a while, the old man just sat and watched the traffic, much as James did out of habit. Leo Fitz and Jemma Simmons ambled past on their lunch break as they always did, having an argument about something-or-other. Melinda May dropped in for a few moments while she picked up some briefing packets, and Skye came through the building without looking up from the computer she was typing furiously on as she toted it to the Director’s office.

Natasha came out after Skye had left and sat with them in silence after exchanged greetings. Pepper Potts showed up with her husband to give him last minute reminders about his meeting topics and just smiled where he grumbled at Base Lehigh’s guest. Jane Foster came in to use the coffee machine right after Tony and Natasha went into her office and Pepper left to get back to New York.

“Who’s that?” she asked, tipping her coffee mug at a dangerous angle towards the old man in the sunglasses.

“An old friend,” Coulson told her placidly, and she said: “Well, hi,” and went back to her lab and Thor.

It was nearly dinner when the Director of SHEATH’s Research and Development department walked in.

He smiled sardonically when he saw Coulson’s guest.

“Heard you were dead.”

“Funny world, isn’t it Banner?” Fury retorted. “Heard the same about _you._ ”

“False alarm,” Bruce told him, voice laden. “Staying out of trouble?”

“Only in your wildest fantasies.”

“Haven’t got any,” Bruce muttered, and retreated to Natasha’s office for dinner as usual.

Fury stood.

“You were right, Phil,” he told his old friend and colleague. “You’ve got a good thing going here.”

“It’s not mine, Nick,” Coulson said quietly, gesturing at the framed charter. “Your Avengers- they did it all by themselves.”

Fury snorted.

“ _My_ Avengers?” he asked. “You may as well say I own the goddam _ocean_ as say they’re mine. They weren’t the Security Counsel’s and they sure as _hell_ weren’t ever SHIELD’s. They’ve never belonged to anyone but themselves.”

He adjusted his sunglasses, pulled his coat tighter, and turned on his heel. At the bottom of the porch steps, he raised one hand lazily in a goodbye.

“Keep up the fight.”

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [No Price Is Too High (To Pay for the Privilege of Owning Yourself)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1433065) by [Kila9Nishika](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kila9Nishika/pseuds/Kila9Nishika)




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